Staffers Cut In W.B. Doner Restructuring

BALTIMORE – Restructuring and some cutting in W.B. Doner’s co-headquarter offices here and in Detroit has streamlined operations and cut about seven agency staffers.The restructuring was most dramatic in Detroit, where the media department has been broken into two new departments, planning and buying.‘We found that clients see planning and buying as two separate functions,’ said Alan Kalter, vice chairman, account management. Planning has become a marketing function with its own department that will pair media planners with account executives in the strategic stages of a marketing plan.Media buying is a separate function. The separation of departments assigns media buyers to regions rather than accounts so that Doner’s various offices may buy for each other’s accounts, said Kalter. The Baltimore office had already ‘evolved’ to that split structure, Kalter said.The new structure occasioned the release of Steve Levine, svp/executive media director and a longtime Doner veteran.‘There was just no need for the traditional media director’s position anymore,’ said Kalter.Meanwhile in Baltimore, about six people were let go in various departments. According to Kalter, the cuts were ‘belt tightening’ due to the loss, in late May, of Vlasic Foods, a $7-million account that Doner had held for 29 years.Chairman/ceo Herb Fried characterized the move as a part of agency business life rather than specifically related to Vlasic.‘We are doing what any other agency prudently does – reviewing our staff periodically and making the appropriate changes,’ he said last week.Copyright Adweek L.P. (1993)